Alika takes the crown in Estonia...
One out of seven Super Saturday winners on LMBTO!
The busiest weekend of the Eurovision National Final season is now past and we have about 40% of the entries for Liverpool! Amazing what ten hours can do - we started with Eesti Laul and ended up with the first power ballad to make it to Liverpool. "Bridges" stood out for me when watching the first video line-up of all the Eesti entries and so I was not unhappy to see Alika perform it perfectly live, self-playing piano and all, leading to the crowning by a reasonable margin in the SuperFinal. OLLIE was a deserved second with his soft rock "Venom" and Bedwetters gave us the entertainment factor on the night with "Monsters". To be honest, I would have been happy with any of those three making it to Eurovision - Anett x Fredi were my other highlight, as you can see from my personal rankings on the night:
Alika proved to be this year's Jury favourite along with the public, which bodes well for Liverpool. The winner of Estonian Idol showed her experience of connecting with cameras, signing perfectly live and projecting her emotions at every stage of her Eesti Laul journey and in my opinion will cruise through to the Eurovision Final, pick up some 12s from the juries and get a decent televote score, putting her into the top ten. It helps how expressive she is with that show, so well done Estonia - you have picked the right singer! And well done to ERR - this was a really great line-up for Eesti Laul, even more so than last year with the 'big hitters' returning. I put Alika up front on this week's show as Estonia announced her win ahead of the other six over those ten hours - they all got played in order, so I'll let you have a listen...
And the playlist, made up of seven Eurovision entries, two more from Lithuania plus the first batch from Sweden this year?
"Bridges" - Alika
"Breaking My Heart" - Reiley
"Aijā" - Sudden Lights
"D.G.T (Off And On)" - Theodor Andrei
"Mama ŠČ!" - LET 3
"Dance (Our Own Party)" - The Busker
"Reġina" - AIDAN
"Due Vite" - Marco Mengoni
"Ghosts Again" - Depeche Mode
"Sigkinitika 'Sigkinithika'" - Eleni Foureira
"A Message To Your Heart" - Samantha Janus
"Нумо Козаки" - KALUSH ORCHESTRA ft KOZAK SIROMAHA
"Rumor" - Moon Bee
"Let Me Think About Me" - Paulina Paukštaitytė
"RAGGEN GÅR" - Elov & Beny
"Diamonds" - Victor Crone
"Mer av dig" - THEOZ
"Now I Know" - Tennessee Tears
"Die Together" - Amanda Tenfjord
"Always Something There To Remind Me" - Trijntje Oosterhuis & Metropole Orkest
"Together We Fly" - DJ BoBo
Let's go through the rest of the new entries for Liverpool, as they were announced chronologically on Saturday/Sunday and also played on the show - next was DMGP:
Reiley was one of the favourites to win in Denmark and his K-pop influences shone through with the vocal and performance with "Breaking My Heart". He didn't seem to have to hit top gear to convince most of the juries that he was the one to win DMGP but surprisingly didn't win the televote in the SuperFinal, coming second to Nicklas Sonne's soft rock. Perhaps he can get his Tik Tok followers out in force for the televote in the SF in Liverpool - his homeland in the Faroe Islands might not be able to help much but it is a real delight to see that nation have their first opportunity at the Contest. I suspect we will see something more visually in Liverpool and that might be enough, added to this modern slice of pop, to get Denmark back in the Final for the first time since 2019. Leonora and her big chair was that act - we haven't seen this next nation in the Final since 2016 but if I had my way, I would have Latvia there in a shot... The clear winner at Supernova with top marks from Jury and Televote, Sudden Lights brought a delightful mix of languages and tempo with "Aijā". It was a very focused band performance that used minimal staging but it worked so well - the musicianship was superb and it was all topped off by the final 40 second focus on lead singer Andrejs almost playing the Latvian lullaby section acoustically. There was a real level of class during this and I will enjoy seeing what this looks like in Liverpool. How the song sounds dictates how big the staging can be and personally I can't see this with huge amounts of bells and whistles - I am hoping that Latvia won't suffer by the lack of juries in the SFs now, as this will tick a lot of boxes for professional musicians on those Final panels. Well done to the band for returning to Supernova after finishing runner-up to Laura Rizzotto in 2018 and securing a win. Romania up next and this was totally different! Normally reprise performances are instantly forgotten, as the artist thanks people or starts laughing/crying during it and we never get anything like the actual show performance. Theodor Andrei bucked that trend by actually having a better vocal performance and delivery of "D.G.T. (Off and on)" at the end of Selecția Națională - his vocals were amazing and had all sorts of feeling and depth to them, plus he showed off his versatility as a performer. No distracting ladies in lingerie or guys who bared their chest part way through at the end and Theodor was all the better for it. The actual show performance was, to be quite frank, like a teenage boy's wet dream sequence! Interacting with very attractive ladies with not much on, having two male dancers who got their chests out and he getting his top ripped off to reveal a message on his chest was all very tacky in my opinion, especially when we were treated to his singing and charisma at the end of the show. As much as I liked looking at the ladies dance around, it was all very distracting and for Romania to stand any hope of getting through, more about Theodor and less about lingerie would be a great place to start! Having said that, his staging was nothing compared to what we saw in DORA: To those watching DORA who are Croatian, LET 3 winning was probably less of a surprise than it was to us outside that nation. A rock band who have been playing around the Balkans since the late 80s and who are well known for such staging as we saw with "MAMA ŠČ!", it is perhaps not surprising that they ran away with the Festival this year, getting enough televotes to outscore every other act's combined score. The song itself is a huge earworm, the lyrics even to those who don't speak the language are easy to sing along to and the music has enough variety to make this an immediate contender for a big SF score with the televote and maybe a top 5 with the public in the Final. There have been some mention that the lyrics are political but read alone with no context behind them, it is all very anonymous and could not on their own be linked to any historical or current conflict. It is the staging that I am certain will have to be changed for Eurovision, a family friendly show, and I suspect that LET 3 know that already. The missiles will have to go, the generalissimo outfits changed and definitely the flowers appearing to come out of a certain area of the backing musicians anatomy will be out too. We will see something totally different in Liverpool but the song and music will be the same. This, along with "Queen Of Kings", are the two entries so far that immediately jump into my head without effort, suggesting two possible front runners already. The last entry to appear last Saturday night was from Malta. MESC has just passed me by this year, given the huge number of entries that started off the process and the typically slow attrition rate of acts before the Final itself. The first time I heard the winning song "Dance (Our Own Party)" sung by The Busker was after their win had been announced and it is a nice catchy song, a decent routine and it makes me think of 'Michael Ben David meets Blåsemafian'! The cardboard cut outs of Ira Losco, Destiny and Joe Grech HAVE to stay for the Liverpool staging and it was a really well though out choreography. Will it be enough to get Malta back into the Final again? I'm not sure yet as the song hasn't really stuck in my head whereas the visuals have - to be honest, it was as good an entry as Malta could have sent but it might not be good enough. They did complete Saturday night - Italy kicked off Sunday morning... Sanremo 2023, as far as the Festival competition was concerned, was all about Marco Mengoni. He and "Due Vite" were the press tips before Sanremo had even started, the winning entry of Night 1/2/3/4/5 and the Superfinal - when you watched the entries play out, there really wasn't any doubt this year. A heartfelt and powerful ballad that we MIGHT be getting in Liverpool - at the very least it needs to lose 45 seconds to make the Eurovision grade but Marco hasn't yet given a definitive answer as to whether that is all that is going to happen. Unlike most other nations, I get the feeling that most Italians really only care for Sanremo and won't be overly upset if Marco takes a different song to Liverpool. I am sure that RAI are not looking for an immediate return to staging Eurovision and a top ten placing would be a good return this year. Whatever Marco ends up singing, you'll hear it on LMBTO - the other main news (apart from flower kicking and lap sitting) was that these guys returned to Sanremo after 33 years away: Depeche Mode performed "Ghosts Again" from their upcoming album and for the first time in public without Andy Fletcher, who passed away last year. Sanremo is remarkable for having this pulling power for major artists around the world, more so than Eurovision, but who knows who might be on that Liverpool stage as an interval act? What stage? This one... A big nod to Kyiv 2017 with the overhead lighting and the satellite stage - this should be the first Eurovision since 2019 where fans are back at stage front again. I suspect that there will be Golden Circle tickets yet again but it does mean that we lose some of the great shots of the other artists enjoying the performances as per Rotterdam. There will be Ukrainian artists in Liverpool and the most obvious ones are last year's winners - as I said on the show, they are performing in London on April 7th, click the link for details...
One of the tracks I played in the last segment of the second hour was "Die Together" by Amanda Tenfjord - that was linked to my attendance of her concert in London on Wednesday 8th February at Omeara, London. Here are some of the pics from that night - first up was Louis Coupe, who was a superb support act:
And then onto the main treat - Amanda herself was superb, a wonderful vocalist, very understated and so pleased to see the crowd that had turned up to see her. She gives this air of calm and yet she has an underlying passion that cannot be denied, something that you get a taste of with this set of pictures... Her band were immense and the atmosphere was spot on, with a mix of Brits, Greeks and Norwegians! Definitely one to go and see, I had the ticket for this gig from end May 2022, so I was delighted to see her in the end. I am certain that we will have lots more music from her unless she commits to her medical career at some point in the future. Next gig for me is not Eurovision based - K.T.Tunstall in Cardiff in March!
And finally, you heard Trijntje Oosterhuis & Metropole Orkest perform on the show "Always Something There To Remind Me" - above is a lovely video with her and Burt Bacharach, songwriter extraordinaire, who passed away last week aged 94. You probably hear a song of his unwittingly every day - have a look at his 'discography':
Burt had his favourite singers and Trijntje was one of them, releasing THREE songbook albums of his material. He will be remembered long after me and all of you reading this have long gone - an incredible songsmith and all round great guy, RIP Burt.
It is a relatively quiet weekend for selections this week - Melodifestivalen continues, Söngvakeppnin begins and only LITHUANIA has their Final. We will also know the French song for La Zarra, that reveal happening on Sunday evening - both that and the Lithuanian entry will be on show 237. The other definite song next Tuesday will be this band...You've heard "Trenulețul" loads of times on the show...
So will it be "Boonika Bate Toba" or "So Lucky"?
Tune in next time to find out!
